February 2006アーカイブ

Today is my final day at the Project room. I have to pack up, which is something rather physically demanding for someone small like me. In Japan, I am neither ‘small’ nor ‘a girl,’ but in Netherlands, I am ‘a small girl.’

I just came back from an excursion around the Netherlands organized by Rijks. This year, we also visited Essen, Germany, to see the factory which was operating when Essen was the most prosperous industrial city of Europe back in the 19th century. We have this kind of excursions four or five times a year. Participation is not mandatory, but as the fee is generally cheap, and as I am generally a stay-at-home person, they offer good opportunities to visit different places.

This was our travel plan. If you are planning a trip to the Netherlands and Germany, it may be useful.

Day One:
De Hallen (Haarlem, the Netherlands)
A museum of contemporary art. Not so big. There was a show by Jörg Immendorff, Jonathan Meese and Julika Rudelius.

Panorama Mesdag (The Hague, the Netherlands)
A museum which has a collection of Hendrik Willem Mesdag, the 19-century Dutch painter, whose life was devoted to the research on the laws of perspective.
A 360-degree panorama landscape painting on the first floor is what you should not miss. Utterly Great.
www.panorama-mesdag.nl

Museum De Pont (Tilburg, the Netherlands)
A museum of contemporary art of an outstanding quality in the Netherlands.
www.depont.nl

Day Two:
Zollverein (Essen, Germany)
A big factory which used to be a coal factory in the 19th century. The factory was closed down in 1958 and now it is a UNESCO monument of 20th century architecture. Within the factory site, there was a project space showing the works of Emilia and Ilya Kabakov, and also a design museum. I enjoyed it.

Kurhaus Kleve (Kleve, Germany)
A museum of contemporary art. Not so big, but it is known for its good collection. When we visited, there was a solo exhibition of Lothar Baumgarten.
http://www.museumkurhaus.de/

Day Three:
Giethoorn (the Netherlands)
This is a small village in the Netherlands, often described as ‘Venice of the North.’ There are lots of farm buildings from old days, one of which is now a museum that introduces a Dutch farming life. The film Fanfare (1958) is set in this village.

Museum De Paviljoens (Almere, the Netherlands)
A museum of contemporary art, located about 20 minutes away from Amsterdam on train. There was a big group show of young Dutch painters. An interesting show.
http://www.depaviljoens.nl/

The Land art projects (the Netherlands)
They are showing some land art projects that took place in the Netherlands, such as by Richard Serra, Daniel Liebeskind, Robert Morris.

It is St. Valentine’s Day today. For a long time, my quotidian matters prevented me from joining the custom of this day... but this morning, I found a rose in my mailbox. I thought ‘Wow, again!’ – as there was a rose in the mailbox last year too. There was a rose in everyone’s mail box. For a while, we were guessing who did this, and concluded that it is probably Janwillem (the director of Rjiks) – as we could not think of any artists who would do such a thing. Janwillem is an elderly man. He is a bit like Santa Claus, isn’t he?

Tomorrow, I am going on a three-day trip round the Netherlands organized by Rijks.

I was invited to dinner at the Koizumis (I wrote about Meiro-kun the other day). We had gyoza (Chinese dumplings / jiao-zi?) together. They said that they are into making ‘dough’ – things like Udon. They even made the skin by themselves – it was 100% homemade. We made fried ones and boiled ones, depending on the thickness of the skin. Mmm... soooo good!
They have TV (I don’t) and we were watching Turin Olympic games. The semi-final of Men 1500m speed skating was just on. There was a Japanese athlete too; but the performance of young Korean skaters impressed me very much. Probably it was because of their clever play; but there was also something very pleasing to watch in their performance. My eyes simply followed their movements.

I finished a show for myself at the Project room, but while I was trying to clear the room, I realized that I would like to try out a few more things. So I asked and they said that I could keep the room a bit longer; so I am still using the Project room, trying this and that; this is a real luxury.

Today, I saw a brindled cat from the window of the Project room . She was in the courtyard of Rijks. She was obviously a house cat, clean and elegant, and su----per pretty. It was my first time to encounter a cat within Rijks (there were lots of chickens though... and they are increasing in number...); I was very excited. I tried to go outside and approach her a bit more – but she looked ready to run away, so I gave up. I hope she will be around again, and we’ll be friends.

Today, I would like to introduce the works of Meiro Koizumi, another Japanese resident artist at Rijks. He is a video artist, but also interested in painting. He is a nice person, funny and unique; He is a big fun of Chuni’chi Dragons (a baseball team in Japan); He loves fish (he makes shime-saba, a marinated mackerel); for a few summers, he worked in one of the mountain lodges on Mt. Fuji the eighth station. He is a person of many interests and different experiences. A valuable asset to the art world. I guess he is a kind of person who chose Sega instead of PS as a kid.
There was an opening of his exhibition in one of the galleries in Amsterdam. They are showing his video work ‘Art of Awakening,’ which he presented at OA. His work is something I have never seen before or never seen anywhere else; strange and very funny. It is ‘the Meiro’s World.’

16. Meiro Koizumi
A vide still from ‘Art of Awakening.’

A person who prefers SEGA to PS (Play Station) or who chooses SEGA unintentionally. A bit peculiar, but will not grow up to be an Otaku (mania).